Behind the legal battle over Harvard funding
Washington — A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration violated Harvard University's First Amendment rights and federal law when it froze nearly $2 billion in federal grants because of the Ivy League school's handling of antisemitism on campus.
In a massive victory for Harvard, U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs blocked Trump administration officials from implementing or instituting orders freezing the grant funding to Harvard and letters terminating research grants awarded by a slew of federal agencies.
Burroughs wrote in her 84-page decision that Harvard has been "plagued" by antisemitism in recent years and should have done more to deal with the issue. But she found that there is "little connection between the research affected by the grant terminations and antisemitism."
"In fact, a review of the administrative record makes it difficult to conclude anything other than that Defendants used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country's premier universities, and did so in a way that runs afoul of the APA, the First Amendment and Title VI," Burroughs wrote. "Further, their actions have jeopardized decades of research and the welfare of all those who could stand to benefit from that research, as well as reflect a disregard for the rights protected by the Constitution and federal statutes."
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
Melissa Quinn is a politics reporter for CBSNews.com. She has written for outlets including the Washington Examiner, Daily Signal and Alexandria Times. Melissa covers U.S. politics, with a focus on the Supreme Court and federal courts.
